Posted on 08/25/2004 2:09:41 PM PDT by yonif
Declaring "the front line of the war against terror once again involves the citizens," Republican Alan Keyes said Tuesday he believes the U.S. Constitution grants properly trained private individuals the right to own and carry machine guns.
"You're not talking about giving citizens access to atom bombs and other things," the former presidential candidate said. "That's ridiculous."
But the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate argued the founding fathers intended the Second Amendment to allow people to carry the types of weapons "customarily carried in those days by ordinary infantry soldiers."
"And, yes, does that mean that in this day and age people would have the right to have access to the kind of the weapons our ordinary infantry people have access to? With proper training and so forth to make sure that they could handle them successfully, that's exactly what was meant."
Keyes made the remarks at a news conference he called to attack the "ideological extremism" of his Democratic opponent, state Sen. Barack Obama.
The Republican lit into Obama for voting against a bill in Springfield earlier this year that would have allowed people who use handguns to fend off home invaders or attackers to argue self-defense as a possible legal defense against prosecution for violating any local anti-firearm possession ordinances.
The measure passed the Legislature with bi-partisan support, but Gov. Blagojevich vetoed it last week.
Keyes called Obama's vote against the measure an "appalling . . . lack of common sense."
"This seems to be a man who is absolutely determined to make the world safe for criminals, while making sure that law-abiding citizens have no opportunity to defend themselves against the criminals," Keyes said.
Keyes said he supports a system in which guns would be treated similarly to automobiles, with people being required to undergo different levels of training before they would be allowed to own and carry various sorts of weapons.
"I always remind -- even people who support the Second Amendment -- that it has two parts: the right to keep and bear" arms, Keyes said. " 'Bear' means to carry, to carry around. . . . I think it has been proven empirically that . . . allowing law-abiding citizens this access to conceal-carry actually reduces crime."
Keyes said he owns two firearms himself: a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol and a .38-caliber "six-shooter." But he said he does not keep them at his new home in Calumet City.
Keyes only indirectly answered a reporter's question about whether he would "be comfortable if the entire society was walking around with Uzis, as long as they were properly trained."
"Have you ever been to Israel?" Keyes asked the reporter. "Because if you've ever been to Israel, you wouldn't ask that question. And in the midst of terrifying dangers, you walk around the streets of Israel and you see every other person carrying arms and Uzis and so forth and so on, and believe me, you do not feel less safe on that account."
Machine guns, or fully automatic weapons, are firearms that fire multiple shots with a single pull of the trigger.
Thomas Ahern, a spokesman for the Chicago division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said private individuals can only own such weapons if they apply with the bureau and clear a series of hurdles, including a background check, fingerprinting and the OK of local law enforcement officials. Additional paperwork is required any time the weapon is to be transported.
"It is heavily regulated," Ahern said.
A spokesman for Obama defended the Democrat's record on guns.
"Certainly he believes in the Second Amendment, but he also believes in common-sense gun safety laws, such as the federal ban on military-style assault weapons." said spokesman Robert Gibbs. "If Alan Keyes truly was concerned about public safety, that would be his position, as well."
Does it sound better when you say it?
Because basically, that's exactly the same thing I just said.
LOL!
My real beef isn't even with Keyes, who I think is a horrible, horrible candidate, but sincere in his beliefs. My beef is with those who chose to put Keyes in the race. Granted, circumstances didn't allow for a primary this time out, but the IL gop went celebrity shopping, and I find it rather disgusting. At least Mike Ditka (had he accepted) would have been a resident if not a native of IL. Keyes was neither. He was just well known, and there is no way you're going to convince anyone that it's Keyes conservative creds that got him the spot when Ditka was the first choice.
To confound things further, Keyes is a firebrand who inspires those who agree with him, while pushing those who don't even further back. He might be in line for sainthood, he might make the best senator IL has ever seen, but he's a horrible candidate. He's not going to win anyone to his side who wasn't already there. You can ban me if you want, but November will bear me out that Keyes will go down with less than 40% of the vote. If you do ban me for not being a Keyes supporter, I hope you have the decency to let this post stand so it can be read in November.
Personally, I hope you don't ban me. I hope you take my dissent, not as some sort of rabid anti-Keyes leftism, but rather as one man's honest assement of the situation in IL. I've been avoiding the Keyes threads for days now, since the first blowup where it became obvious where you stood. However, being silent is just making me feel like a coward, and in the morining it's me I have look at in the morror.
We have a winner.
I'm saying those who are trashing Keyes and ganging up to bash our Keyes supporters on every Keyes related thread on this forum are working against our goals and, yes, their welcomes are wearing a bit thin along with my patience.
I just saw the question there and Tribe's argument. There was that in a nutshell part that somehow concluded infringement in the form of registration, and possibly taxation was Constitutional. Tax, only if it applies to goods in general. Registration, not only implies priviledge, it undermines the purpose of the Amend. and only functions to facilitate confiscation.
From your FR profile page:
Politically I:
Believe in smaller government, and the elimination of rot like the national endownment of the arts, funding for pbs, public service bs, the deptartment of education, etc etc.
Believe in an end to welfare
Oppose affirmative action
Support the equality of men and women, and that of the different races.
Believe the solution to illegal immigration is that when welfare (freebies) dries up, only the productive will profit, and the problem will dry up.
Believe in the 2nd Amendment
Believe in the absolute broadest interpretation of the 1st Amendment that's possible. I reject the idea that government has the right to censor what i read or watch unless it's security issue concerning sensitive data.
Believe in the seperation of church and state (and yes I know it was in letter to the Dansbury Baptist Church from Thomas Jefferson, and not in the constitution)
And last but not least, I am an atheist. If that automatically puts me on your short list, so be it.
From Alan Keyes Issues statement:
Alan Keyes on the issues
On his political priorities
I aim to strengthen the foundations of political liberty in America. I believe that it remains the destiny of the American people to uphold the right of all humankind to practice responsible self-government.
Dedication to this Providential purpose is the heart and soul of what it means to be an American. I will labor to: abolish the income tax; liberate entrepreneurial and charitable initiative; honor marriage and the family; respect the equal dignity of all human beings, born and unborn; reclaim American sovereignty from global bureaucracy; and show, by word and deed, the role of statesmanship in a free republic.
On the need for moral leadership
America's most pressing problems are rooted in the decline of our moral identity. Crime, rampant illegitimacy, the deteriorating environment in many of our schools, and especially the spectacle of national shame that unfolded during the 90's in the Clinton White House, all these can be traced to lack of respect for moral principle.
Since we are in the throes of a national moral identity crisis, we can no longer follow leaders for whom the moral challenge facing this nation is an afterthought. We need leaders who can articulate a principled vision of who we are and aspire to be.
On the Declaration of Independence
As a free people, our way of life depends upon certain moral ideas. As a matter of personal conscience, I believe that Christianity most perfectly embodies those ideas.
But since Americans come from many different religious backgrounds, in dealing with issues of public policy we must derive these ideas from sources that are open to support from all the people.
Nothing meets this purpose more completely than the principles and logic of our own Declaration of Independence, so I have made it the explicit basis for dealing with the moral crisis we now face.
The Declaration is fundamentally a statement of the principles of justice that define the moral identity of the American people.
On the source of our rights
We have forgotten the principle that our rights come from God and must be exercised with respect for the existence and authority of God. . . .
You can't have it both ways. Either our rights come from God, as our Declaration of Independence says, or they come from human choice. If they come from human choice, then our whole way of life is meaningless, it has no foundation.
On the role of government
All human beings are created equal. They need no title or qualification beyond their own simple humanity in order to command respect for their intrinsic human dignity, their "unalienable rights."
The purpose of government is to secure these rights, and no government is just or legitimate if it systematically violates them.
On three main areas of national decline
Through the imposition of the income tax, we have surrendered our economic sovereignty--the control of our money. Through the acceptance of a government-controlled school system, we have surrendered our educational sovereignty--the control of our future. And through the acceptance of a moral relativism that rejects the most basic premise of our way of life [i.e., the belief in divine truth], we have surrendered our personal and individual sovereignty, which is the foundation of our discipline, and our freedom.
On separation of church and state
The "separation of church and state" doctrine is a misinterpretation of the Constitution. The First Amendment prohibition of established religion aims at forbidding all government-sponsored coercion of religious conscience. It does not forbid all religious influence upon politics or society.
On school prayer
If they tell us that we cannot pray in the classroom, we should pray. If they tell us that we cannot pray in the hallways, we should pray. If they tell us that we cannot pray at the graduation ceremonies, we should pray. Because what they are doing fundamentally violates probably the most important of our God-given rights, which is the right to appeal for aid to our Almighty God.
When the tyrants who seek to oppress you tell you that you cannot even appeal to God for His aid, you know that they have in mind a tyranny without limit. We are allowing ourselves to be put in a situation in which that which actually provides the foundation for the most reliable courage against tyranny is interfered with, and in which our children and others are given the feeling that there is some place in American life--indeed, a growing number of places--where they must feel fearful and hesitant to call upon and to speak the name of God. And in my opinion the proper recourse against this is not to wait upon the courts, legal procedures and so forth, but simply to do what we unequivocally have the God-given right to do--to pray WHEREVER and WHENEVER we feel that it is necessary for us to pray.
On school choice
I support school choice. Parents should be able to send their children to schools that reflect their faith and values, schools of their choice, where they can have an influence over a curriculum that goes beyond just what information kids are given and that affects how their consciences will be shaped, how their character will be developed.
Above all, we must break up the government monopoly on public education.
On abortion
I think, given what the courts have done, we have to have a human life amendment, yes. [The courts] have violated the very terms of the Constitution itself. They act as if the unborn are not mentioned in the Constitution, and again, they lie. In the preamble to the Constitution, regarded as an important and preeminent statement of the goals and purposes and principles of the whole form of government we have, the Constitution [says] that our aim is to secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. Our posterity are those not yet born.
On replacing the income tax with a national sales tax
The income tax is a twentieth-century socialist experiment that has failed. Before the income tax was imposed on us just 80 years ago, government had no claim to our income. Only sales, excise, and tariff taxes were allowed.
The income tax in effect makes us vassals to the government. No mere "reform" of this slave tax, such as flattening the rate, can correct its fundamental denial of control over our own money. Only abolition of the income tax will restore the basic American principle that our income is both our own money and our own private business--not the government's.
Replacing the income tax with a national sales tax would rejuvenate independence and responsibility in our citizens. [It] would also put the American citizen back in control of fiscal policy. The best way to curtail government spending is to cut taxes, because they can't spend what they don't get. With a sales tax, we could deny funds to a spendthrift government--and give ourselves a tax cut--whenever we make the private choice to alter our spending and saving habits.
On details of his national sales tax proposal
Well, poor folks wouldn't have to pay taxes, because the proposal that I support would include a market basket of goods and services in all the basic areas of necessity and requirements of life that would be exempt from taxation.
Right now, people say we have a progressive income tax, [that] the rich people pay more. [But in reality] the working stiffs of America end up bearing the brunt of taxation.
Most of the money collected in the income tax comes from brackets $50,000 and below, from working people. The way in which my proposal helps them is it gives them back control of their money. Until they decide how to spend it, the government doesn't get to tax it, and if they spend it on the basic necessities of life, people who are poor, people who are on fixed incomes and so forth and so on, they wouldn't have to pay taxes.
But also other people who are at a time in life where maybe they're saving for the down payment on their house or trying to do something else, they would be able to give themselves tax cuts just by controlling the pattern of their consumption.
So, it puts everyone--poor and working people--back in control of their own economic life.
On the Second Amendment
The Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms is in jeopardy these days--dangerously so. The purpose of the Second Amendment is to ensure that we will remain an armed people, able to defend our liberty.
In our defense of firearm rights, we must emphasize this fundamental purpose of the amendment. If we leave the impression that we think that the right to keep and bear arms concerns hunting and sports shooting, and making sure Americans have the right to entertain themselves with guns, we will actually contribute to the false view that the Second Amendment is an historical curiosity, hardly deserving the effort it would take to officially remove it from the Constitution.
The right to keep and bear arms derives from our duty to retain the basic means necessary to defend our country and our liberty. Certainly it is true that the actual defense of our national borders is normally delegated to the professional military. But we must never think that this revocable delegation of responsibility for national defense is a transfer of ultimate responsibility. We, the people, are responsible for the defense of country and liberty, and the Second Amendment is crucial to our performance of that duty.
On racial quotas
In the 1960's, the civil rights movement sought the assistance of government to enforce the fundamental principle that all men are created equal. But today's civil rights groups have abandoned that principle in favor of preferential treatment for groups defined by race or sex. This is simply wrong. We cannot cure injustice with another injustice.
Moreover, preferential affirmative action patronizes American blacks, women, and others by presuming that they cannot succeed on their own. Preferential affirmative action does not advance civil rights in this country. It is merely another government patronage program that secures money and jobs for the few people who benefit from it, and breeds resentment in the many who do not. It divides us as a people, and draws attention away from the moral and family breakdown that is the chief cause of the despair and misery in which too many of our fellow citizens struggle to live decently.
In 1996, the voters of California adopted a simple and fair prohibition of preferences and repeated the principle of non-discrimination. The Federal government should follow California's lead immediately.
On saving the family farm
The resilience of our spirit as a people, the characteristics that have made us strong and provided the foundations for much of this nation's success in the world, are rooted in the moral culture of the family farm. . . . [But] we can't save the family farm with economic arguments, because if Money is God in American politics, the agri-business corporations will control agricultural policy in America. To protect the family farm, we need to move beyond economic arguments to generate a sincere and permanent commitment to the human institution involved.
On U.S. interventionism in the world
I would want to renounce the idea that we have the right to interfere, in an aggressive way, with the affairs of other [nations]. I think we can play a constructive role in trying to bring about diplomatic solutions in different parts of the world, but I do not believe that when our ideas are rejected, we should resort to war in order to force people to accept a deal that's dictated on our terms.
Check Obama's position statement and tell me which candidate you would prefer in the U.S. Senate.
We can agree that States do not have the power to ignore the Constitution on basic individual rights.
Keyes often gives the impression, [mostly in the heat of his speeches],
that he thinks otherwise.
This confuses some of his supporters into thinking he advocates State controls over some of our unenumerated rights.
______________________________________
Jim Robinson wrote:
From Alan Keyes on the Issues:
"We have forgotten the principle that our rights come from God and must be exercised with respect for the existence and authority of God."
______________________________________
Yep, there it is, in his own words, -- he gives the impression to some folks that our rights, -- "must be exercised with respect for the existence and authority of God."
This opinion is fine with me, as I realise that Keyes is not suggesting that I ~must~ obey his vision of what our rights are.
He, and I, and most here can agree that we hold a pretty common Constitutional view on what our basic rights to life, liberty, or property include.
The devils in those details though. And when Keyes gets fired up in debate, those devils come out, much to often, imo.
Gotcha Boss. I'm with you on some of the bashing of the the Keyes supporters. A lot of arguements are getting waaaay to personal. I respect the Keyes supporters, I truly do. I obviously misread your original post. My mistake, and my apologies. I should have known you weren't asking anyone to leave for not supporting a candidate.
Thanks
Infringements are not allowed, so obfuscations for creation of inventories of any sort is out. It is a consumer good and should be taxed like all others. At present there's an income tax and a special sales tax on arms and ammo that goes to conservation purposes. There is no inventory in that and the mechanics of the tax make that impossible. Taxing them out of the hands of the poorest of our citizens is also abhorent.
I'm with you there as well. I never even considered the possibility that Obama might be a better candidate than Keyes, because obviously, Obama is the worst kind of democrat imaginable: One produced by the Chicago Political Machine, of which volumes have been written. If anything I've written as come across as even remotely supportive of Obama, I've truly blown it, big time.
Tell ya what. I'm seeing your point that it really is a race between Obama and Keyes. So, with that in mind, I'll back completely off, and we can take it up in November when the race is over. Then, if Keyes has prevailed we can pat those who chose him on the back, and I'll try to figure out where I went so worng. If he's lost as badly as I'm afraid, we'll know to better guide the choice of the next 11th hour replacement, should the need ever arise.
Then I sure must have whooped Don Joe's A** the other day, because he sure kept whining to the moderator (and to Jim) like he was needing a diaper change. I would ping him to this, but he doesn't want me to.
BTW, I was asked not to communicate with him on THAT THREAD only, so when he goes tattling again I hope he doesn't try to mislead the mod.
Please.
I'll take one of each thank you :)
You will support a Liberal like Arlen Specter but will not support a conservative like Allen Keyes.
That says it all.
To the faithful, Keyes never loses.
The last election is just refered to as:
"Remember, when Keyes got 3% of popular vote? Good times, good times!"
Right now the beautiful people are high-fiving each other.
Meanwhile, the average guy is saying, "Right on!"
So far, so good. But the soccer moms are the ones that concern me.
How about Switzerland? Isn't every citizen given a rifle?
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